


After He Arrived

by ariatheminidragon



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Coffee, Delores is a good bro, Gen, Illnesses, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Introspection, Lonely Number Five | The Boy, Lonliness, Mild Gore, Mildly Graphic Description of Corpses, Minor Injuries, Number Five | The Boy Deserves Better, Number Five | The Boy Has Issues, Number Five | The Boy Needs A Hug, Number Five | The Boy has PTSD, Number Five | The Boy-centric, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Apocalypse, Rating May Change, The Umbrella Academy - Freeform, Thoughts of Suicide, Underage Drinking, Vomiting, Young Number Five | The Boy, does anyone know if its spelled delores or dolores
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:35:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26245795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ariatheminidragon/pseuds/ariatheminidragon
Summary: Five had been making his way through the rubble and spotted a bunch of cans lying underneath some fallen lumber. He moved towards it hastily, driven by the sight of some Spam, but stopped suddenly when he heard a horrible crunch that was followed by a sickening squelch as his foot sunk into something. He had stood there for a moment, not wanting to look down and see what it was. He knew what it was.-A lot of stuff can happen in 45 years. Especially if you've been alone in a post-apocalyptic world since the age of 13.
Relationships: Dolores & Number Five | The Boy (Umbrella Academy)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 79





	1. one week after arriving

**Author's Note:**

> the chapter titles are important :) they're the timeline so don't forget!

Five sat in the back of the brown plumbing van with a notebook in his hand, carefully counting what he had. So far he had four cans of corn, ten cans of green beans, three cans of tuna, twenty-seven bottles of water, a can of pears and two precious cans of Spam. Besides all of that he also had the beginnings of a first aid kit. He leaned back against the side of the van, his neck aching from looking down for too long. Five rubbed his eyes and glanced out of the dust-covered window, taking note of the height of the sun from the horizon. He only had about 2 hours of daylight left. 

He sighed and stood up, pushing open the back door of the van and stepped out. He had parked the van near the department store so he could go back and forth with a bit more ease. He probably could jump between the two places if he wanted to, even if he was carrying a bunch of stuff with him, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Every time the thought crossed his mind his gut clenched with anxiety and regret. He didn’t know if he could ever jump again, let alone try to jump back to his own time. There was a large margin of error and the chance of getting back was small, even if he hadn’t sat down and done the math on it yet. 

Five made his way into the store, stepping carefully around the sharp edges of rubble and decaying corpses. That was one thing he didn’t know if he could ever get over. No matter where he went, there were dead everywhere. The air was already suffocating with ash and other particles, but it was quickly becoming saturated with the scent of rotting flesh as well. In some areas it was almost unbearable, making his stomach churn. He had attempted to bury his siblings and get them away from the open air so he didn't have to smell the decay and know some of it was from his brothers and sister. In the end, he only buried Diego and Klaus. They weren’t crushed by many debris, but Allison and Luther were. Five had attempted to remove Luther but stopped immediately after he heard bones and flesh crunch underneath the broken concrete. He threw up after that.

Five made his way to the clothing section of the store and dug around until he found some clothing in his size. While he was there he grabbed some bigger sizes too. Thirteen was possibly one of the worst ages to end up in a place like this. He was growing fast, and even if it slowed down because his diet was not as good as it was before, he still had quite a bit of growing left to do. Setting some clothes aside that he’ll eventually grow into was a good move. He found some boots to go along with them too after he found a few pairs that fit him. He knew he would eventually run into clothing issues, but that was a problem for a later date.

After Five had collected a large number of clothes he made his way back to the van. He still wasn’t sure where he was going to set up his shelter. He was considering finding other vans and having different things in them. Maybe one for provisions and other important things and another to sleep in? He would like to have them set up in an area that was close to the store and maybe the library, but the big issue with finding a place to sleep was the fires that were still burning and the bodies that were scattered across the city. It would take weeks to move the corpeses if he could move them at all. The sound of ripping flesh and breaking bones echoed in his mind as the faces of his dead siblings flashed across his vision. No, he would not be moving many.

He climbed back in the van and pushed all of the things he had collected to the side, clearing a large enough space for him to curl up. He had an emergency blanket that he found in the glove box, and had been sleeping under that for the past days. Five had found a long pair of pants after the first night because it had been so cold that he didn’t get any sleep. In all honesty though, even if the temperature hadn’t been too cold, he wouldn’t have slept anyway. Even a week later, the reality of his situation was still setting in. It seemed too real and not possible all at once. Still, he hadn’t had the time to dwell on it for long because on that first day it dawned on him that he needed a lot of things that he didn’t have. Five had thrown himself into finding as many provisions as he could. Of course, thinking about the size of his collection now stressed him out because so many things had been destroyed so he didn’t have much. He might have to travel to other cities eventually because he now had a limited supply of, well, everything, water included. 

Five curled up on the hard floor of the brown plumbing van, and tried to push the negative thoughts out of his mind. The sound of his dad telling him he shouldn’t time travel echoed cruelly in his mind as his eyes fluttered closed and he fell into a fitful sleep.


	2. one month after arriving

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> two chapters in a row because why not?

Delores was great. She was gentle with Five and let him rant as long as he needed to with no complaints. She was a wonderful conversationalist even if she did chide him when he drank entire bottles of booze in one night. In the evening, after he had put all of his supplies in their rightful places, they would sit and talk for hours. He talked about his childhood and his siblings. He recounted the way his mom would come and say goodnight to each of them, even as they got older, and the way Pogo would stand behind in the doorway as his own way of bidding them goodnight. He talked about his Father's dismissal when it came to most anything, including bedtimes and the concept that positive reinforcement could actually do a lot of good when it came to children. Delores was always quiet when he talked about his younger years, never mentioning the fact that he really still was a child--or should be. Truthfully, Five hadn’t felt like a child since he was ten years old. His Father's expectations of them all nearly doubled after they hit the double digits, and any behaviors he considered too childish were conditioned out of them as soon as possible, even if it was ruthless. 

Delores was also very comforting. One afternoon Five had gotten a small cut on his wrist so he had to pause everything he had planned for the day to make sure he cleaned it and bandaged it properly. He couldn’t risk getting an infection. Something small like that could kill him very quickly. The cut ended up being on the arm that had the tattoo on it. These days he avoided looking at it because he often found himself spiraling into a pit of overthinking. He couldn’t avoid it this time though. 

The black umbrella seemed to mock him as he bandaged his injury. He could practically hear the sound of his father telling him he had it coming. He did, didn’t he? In a moment of childish hubris, he made a rash decision that he couldn’t reverse. He was at fault. He could be home with his living, breathing siblings, eating a home cooked meal in silence while Reginald looked at them all with a blank face. He could be home in his bed, in his clean room. He could be home where clean water was aplenty and he could easily wash away all the grime on his skin that had begun to build up. He could-

Delores snapped him out of his spiral with soft tones and comforting words. She told him it would be okay. She told him that she would be there for him. She would never make him feel weak or pathetic or like he was nothing if she could help it. She told him she would be there for him. That night, Five fell asleep to the sound of Delores humming an old lullaby he hadn’t heard since he was very, very young, and for a moment, he was back in his bed, with a full belly and clean, damp hair.

Sometimes, Five and Delores fought. It always happened when he was drunk. She would tell him that it was bad for his body. She would tell him that he would stunt his growth and make his brain stop developing as it should. Five knew she was right, but at the same time, being drunk numbed everything for a short amount of time and he wouldn’t have to think about the state of the world. He was okay with the idea of being stunted if it meant he had a brief escape. Why did he care anyway? It’s not like there was any reason to care about his appearance later in life, or even now for that matter. Delores didn’t care about looks, right?

It wasn’t the looks, she was concerned for his health. They never shouted when they fought, but she would give him the silent treatment, which hurt a million times more than a yelling match. It made the world sound so quiet it was almost unbearable at times, and it reminded him of how utterly alone he really was. Five’s drunk mind would make things worse too. Sometimes he felt like the sky itself was breathing down his neck and stuffing cotton in his ears until he couldn’t hear anything but the sound of his thumping heart in his skull. Sometimes the silence was deafening in its own pitiless way and he would begin to hyperventilate. He hated the fact that once he started to lose his mind Delores would always come back to him and whisper sweetly in his ear to calm him down. He hated that he would sometimes push himself into panicking just to get her to talk to him. 

Even so, he would still drink himself silly some nights and wake up with a pounding headache. He knew he was slowly destroying his body, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. He knew that it upset Delores, but when he was drunk and she was talking to him, his evenings were not unpleasant. He would fall asleep quickly, the warmth in his stomach from the alcohol overpowering the hunger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading :) tell me what you think, or if there are any typos in the comments if you're up to it.


	3. three months after arriving

Five knew he shouldn’t have taken food for granted before all of this, but he did. After so many months digging through destroyed homes and stores in search of anything edible, he had realized that food was a very precious resource that he had under appreciated. During the first week of being in 2019, he was sometimes lucky enough to come across a fresh fruit or vegetables. A month or so after that he could sometimes find a stray coconut, oddly enough. Those had certainly been a treat. But now, so many months after everything was ruined, there wasn’t much other than canned foods. He had found most of the cans in the stores near him and squirreled them away in the trunk of a little silver Toyota. He had also spent a good couple of days looking for bottled and jugged water. Those were also stashed in the Toyota, sitting in the backseat.

After month two, Five had decided to ration what he had. Eventually, he would have to start leaving town to find the things he needed, but he wanted to put that off as long as he could. He allowed himself half a can of fruit in the morning, half a can of protein at lunch, and then the other halves of the fruit and protein for dinner as well as half a can of vegetables. In between meals he would eat protein bars if he had them around. He wasn’t necessarily satisfied at the end of the day, but the gnawing feeling of hunger wasn’t a constant. He knew he needed to consume around 2,000 calories in a day to stay somewhat the same size, but he could never quite get enough. He didn’t know how much he weighed, so he was hoping he could gauge it by the way his clothes fit.

One day Five got lucky and found a whole bunch of instant coffee. He wasn’t ever a coffee fan but it was there and he figured the caffeine would probably do him some good. He also decided that adding it to the water he boiled from local ponds would taste a lot better if it was being overpowered by coffee. It was one of the best decisions he had ever made. The energy boost in the morning did wonders for him and it made drinking water a little more tolerable.

A few days after that his stroke of luck ended though. He was out and about searching for some cans in the houses at the edge of town. He had left Delores to hold down the fort because she was feeling a bit under the weather. Five had been making his way through the rubble and spotted a bunch of cans lying underneath some fallen lumber. He moved towards it hastily, driven by the sight of some Spam, but stopped suddenly when he heard a horrible crunch that was followed by a sickening squelch as his foot sunk into something. He had stood there for a moment, not wanting to look down and see what it was. He knew what it was. Five recognized he couldn't stay stationary forever though, and when he slowly looked down he was met with the sight of his foot in a chest cavity, the brown organics spilling over his foot and staining the shoe. He had stumbled back quickly and choked up everything he had in his stomach. Even after there was nothing left he was still left dry heaving as tears began to roll down his filthy cheeks. He tried not to think about all the corpses. He looked away or plugged his nose or turned around and went the other way. He hadn’t gotten close to any of them. Now his shoe was covered in guts and maggots and it reeked. Oh, it really reeked. Once again, he was retching. The putrid scent wafted into the air, making Five feel like he was being attacked for disturbing it. 

He didn’t eat anything for the next two days because he couldn’t get the sight of cans covered with human decomposition out of his head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i can't tell if this is turning out to be boring or not, but whatevs. its also come to my attention that i am a very slow writer.


	4. six months after arriving

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have a few pre written chapters but after that im going to wing it. for now im going to try updating once a week until i run out of the stuff in my drafts and then ill reevaluate. let me know what you think in the comments :)

The first birthday Five could remember clearly was when he and all of his other siblings turned eight. It was the one day a year that sweets were allowed in the Hargreeves house, and they were all practically vibrating with excitement as Mom made their cake through the day. They had been allowed a short training session and then set free to play in the house while they waited for the day to pass. A huge meal was planned for the evening and after lunch, they were each given half of a Snickers bar. 

Five spent most of the day with Vanya and Ben. They sat in comfortable silence, reading books, or playing with legos. Klaus would come and go, bringing them handfuls of cheerios that he stole behind Mom's back. At one point all four of them were together, laying on their backs side by side, talking about what kind of cake they wanted it to be. Klaus had sat up abruptly saying he wanted it to be carrot cake. This made all of the others scrunch up their faces and disagree strongly. “Carrot cake is for old people,” Ben had said. Klaus stuck his tongue out and dropped onto the floor again. 

He couldn’t remember many details about the day, but he did remember how warm he felt on the inside. Five remembered feeling happy and content, especially after he found out that One, Two, and Three had snuck out to get those little surprise toys that came in the small 25 cents turn vending machines. Sir Reginald had never been one for gifts, so receiving the capsule had been thrilling for all of them. Even if they got in trouble later that evening, they had all felt united. They fell asleep quickly that night with small rubber balls clutched in their hands.

Five remembered his last birthday clearly. He wished it had been better, but he was the one to blame for the way it turned out. He had been sneaking out of the house for the past months and going to a diner down the road where they served all sorts of donuts. It wasn’t hard, seeing as he could just jump from point A to point B with ease. Some days he would jump to a spot on the street nearby and wander around so he could take in the sights of the morning bustle and long for the lives of everyone around him. He knew he’d get caught eventually, but when he was actually out of the house, he couldn't bring himself to care about potential consequences. 

Five knew something was off the moment he sat down. Usually, they were allowed to eat some sort of sugar cereal on the morning of their birthday, often with strawberries and blueberries mixed in, but that morning there was the usual oatmeal and side of eggs. None of them said anything, instead glancing at each other with questioning eyes. Who had done something now? Reginald seemed to know they wouldn't touch the subject because he spoke up in his usual dismissing voice, even though no one was allowed to speak during breakfast.

“There is no cereal for children who do not obey the rules.”

They flicked their eyes at each other, shooting quick looks at Klaus who had the bigger habit of disobeying and landing them all with a punishment. Five sat quietly, spoon gripped tightly in his hand. There was a heavy silence for a few moments. “You can thank Number Five for the schedule of today.” 

All eyes were on him. 

After breakfast they spent the entire day training, being pushed past their limit. They were given a sandwich for lunch and then put back to work. The whole day Five had been told to jump as much as he could in two minutes. He had managed to jump ten times but was exhausted by the end of it. He was allowed a water break and then he was instructed to jump as many times as he could, bringing other things with him such as a full backpack and two dumbbell weights. It was harder to take things with him, and he nearly collapsed after three jumps. All of them were doing something that made them go past their limit. Even Vanya was instructed to memorize long passages by the end of the day. There was no fantastic feast that evening, and when they were given half an hour of free time before bed, Five spent it throwing up, every cell in his body crying in agony. The day after, he was treated with nothing but contempt by his brothers and sisters. He deserved it. 

Today was Five’s birthday and he was now fourteen years old. He spent the day with Delores, who tried her hardest to cheer him up with little luck. In the end, he ended up drinking, much to Delores’ displeasure. He just sat on the ground in front of the little fire he had made, sipping a random liqueur, and thinking about his siblings. He missed hearing Vanya’s violin while he practiced physics. He missed the quiet company of Ben while they read classic literature. He missed seeing Allison and Luthor teasing each other playfully. He missed Diego and the stupid carvings that he left on anything wood in the house as a way to rebel. He missed Klaus always bursting into his room without knocking, claiming he saw a bee the size of a dog. He wished they all had a better relationship. Five knew their dad drove them apart where he could which was the biggest problem, but he knew he could've done a lot to make it better. He wished that he could close his eyes without seeing them buried under the ruins of their traumatic childhood. He wished he could go home and share his birthday as he'd always done because even if they weren't always friends, they still loved each other. 

That night he curled up in his nest of clothes and his emergency blanket with his back turned towards Delores, and allowed himself to softly cry to sleep, longing for the place he called hell, but the place he also called home. The next morning, Delores pretended she didn’t see the streaks the tears left on his grime covered face, and life carried on.


	5. one year after arriving

Vanya had written about all of them. He had found her book shortly after arriving, and had read it whenever he could. He found that it was a good distraction from the aching in his stomach from the hunger, and Delores approved of him reading instead of drinking, so he read it over and over. At first it was just a comfort, but after he had set up a base of sorts, he had been using it for math. He was going to stop the apocalypse. Five spent hours going over equations and scenarios, trying to figure out if there was a way to get back. He set up near the library. He dug up all the intact books and set them in stacks around him and he poured over them for hours. Not all of them were useful when it came to the math, but he still read them all because it was something to do. 

The anniversary of his arrival wasn’t much different from one of his normal days. He found a few bugs, drank a cup of shitty coffee, and sat with his books and a bottle of booze. Five wasn’t paying very close attention to any of them, instead choosing to sit with Vanya’s book and read sections of it again. He knew that Ben died. It hadn’t been easy when he read it. His heart had stopped and he read the passage repeatedly, but his eyes did not deceive him. Ben was gone. At least Five knew why he never found his body. 

He took another swig of alcohol and leaned back against the cement. Delores sat across from him silently. She knew that today was probably not the day to talk about his drinking habits. He’d tried his hardest to cut back on it, because there wasn’t an unlimited supply. Now he allowed himself to get drunk once every two weeks, which worked all right because with the kinds of alcohol he found he wouldn’t even get through a third of the bottle before he was trashed. Delores still did not approve, but they fought a little less once he started to pace himself. 

Today, Five read the section about him. He found it comforting that at least Vanya had missed him as much as he missed them. He knew he hadn’t been the family favorite. Five was an overconfident child, thinking highly of his abilities and considering himself one of the smartest in the academy. He was labeled as patronizing and snobby by most of the others, with the exception of Ben and Vanya. His relationship with numbers one through four was often tense, particularly with Diego and Luther, as their craving to be the best was the strongest. When conversations of intelligence began, they often ended with angry glares and a weaker relationship. He wasn't the type to boast--he liked keeping to himself--but when he became frustrated with his sibling's lack of understanding he would make snide comments which would get a rise out of his first two brothers. As time went on, Five began to consider the possibility that Reginald was encouraging this kind of relationship. One and Two were always competing with each other to be the leader of the bunch, but they never fought over their level of intellect until Five had been moved a few levels above the others in math. Reginald had spent the day ensuring that everyone knew Five was ahead, and that was when it truly began. His relationship with all of the others was never quite the same after that.

Their father had also liked corporal punishment because it often created tension between them. None of them would get their free time before bed, or training sessions would be longer and more grueling than usual. Sometimes meals were changed, so for lunch they got a granola bar instead of a sandwich. Sometimes they were forced to spend their days memorizing long passages of this or that and then whoever could remember the most was rewarded with the usual routine while the others sat by and watched. Sometimes things got a little out of hand, and the punishments became less physical and more psychological. There were times when one of them would step out of line, and Reginald made that one child sit and watch while the siblings ate. They would all end up crying on those days, out of guilt or physical pain. Even if they were pitted against each other, they were still siblings. 

Sometimes, training felt like a punishment more than anything. Five knew Klaus had been locked in mausoleums for hours on end. He knew that Luther was forced to lift things that seemed unmovable and wasn’t allowed to eat until he had completed the task. Allison was tasked with finding more and more creative ways to use her power, and sometimes she would be given a liquid that made her voice all but disappear, and then asked to rumor as many people as she could despite the inability to speak. Diego had things thrown at him, and if he couldn’t hold them back and got injured in the process, he was not given all of the medical attention he needed. Ben was sent into a reinforced room and then told to hold his power for as long as he could without injuring the animal that was placed in the room with him. Five had been pushed off of increasingly tall buildings and forced to jump before he hit the ground, even after he had reached his jump limit. Comparing all of that to his situation now, Five would gladly go back to being shoved off of a building. 

Sometimes he talked about the training with Delores. She always listened, and sometimes would reassure him that he wasn’t crazy for hating his father. She told him that Reginald had been wrong to put them all through those kinds of things. When Five asked how she knew, she would always cite some long textbook on psychology, and then he would feel so much smaller than before. He didn’t want to call it what it was, but Delores had insisted that he recognized the kind of abuse he and all of his siblings had gone through. She talked him down from his moments of panic after they had those conversations. She always felt bad after they talked, feeling responsible for causing him pain, but it made Five admit that she was right--it was Reginald Hargreeves at fault, not the children, who didn’t know any better than what they had been taught.   
That didn’t change the fact that Five was terrified of heights at the end of the day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you liked the chapter. eventually i will probably go through and add way more details to these chapters but for right now that would take too much energy, so you're stuck with short kinda vague chapters. let me know what you think or if you find any typos :)

**Author's Note:**

> i'm still not sure how long this will be. i haven't decided if i want to cut it off before he meets the handler or if i want to go into some of his time with the commission. i just wanted to get a closer look at his experiences and emotions as he grew up. thanks for being here, and wish me luck, because i don't want this to end up in my unfinished works graveyard lol


End file.
